


I haven't been breathing recently.

by BetaBoks



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Have fun !, Idk all of it is mostly personal experience, This work is more personal?, but ofc it's all surreal and abstract, take the train to nowhere! live life., unlike my other two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22956361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetaBoks/pseuds/BetaBoks
Summary: Train station after train station, reality blurs into itself.
Kudos: 6





	I haven't been breathing recently.

I haven’t been breathing recently. 

It didn’t seem odd to me, not one bit, but my friends brought it up one night. “Are you sure you’re alright?” They had said, as if I had been any less functional. I said I was fine in return, but I could tell they were still unsettled by the way my chest simply didn’t move. 

It’s not like I need to, right?

Breathing isn’t mandatory. I was still alive despite it and clearly everything was  _ fine _ . I simply sat next to them soundlessly, figuring they would get used to it. In the long run, it was much better than them hearing the sound of breathing, I’m sure they’d learn that soon enough.

I met with my friends every week, like clockwork. As if automated we’ll know when and where to meet, we’ll sit and we’ll talk, we’ll have a drink, and it’s nice. It’s very nice. It’s so nice that I’ve grown to dislike it, not because of any fault of theirs, but because it’s every week, like clockwork. If you keep paying attention to 12 AM at some point you’ll grow sick of it, right?

It’s just the three of us every time, and we’ll settle at someone’s house by 6. I’ll leave by 9. I’m the only consistent one, the others do things at their own discretion— they’re busy people, after all. Busy people, with the oxymoron of being unhurried. However they want to live their lives does not concern me in the slightest, up until it does, but that distinction doesn’t need to be made either.

It was a normal Saturday. I left my friend’s house, though— I took the train. The metrorail looked enticing with it’s muddy entrances and high stairs, although the system in my city is rather a mess. I stood at the platform waiting with nothing but what I’d packed in my small little backpack— a couple of books, a charger, a singular pack of instant noodles that one of my companions thought was a funny and nonsensical gift, my wallet— and when the train came, I got on. My feet felt like asphalt as I went, weighted down slightly by the ache in my chest, but I persisted either way. 

I went off to the end of the track, unsure even where it went. I asked for the nearest train station from there and was very pleasantly surprised with the revelation that it was less than a block away. I took a train at the station (though it felt more like a small airport, I laughed to myself) and I left the city entirely. God knows where I was going. God knows if I had the money to sustain it. 

I haven’t been speaking to my friends recently. 

The train rides were quiet, and as long as I bought a ticket to go wherever else at the station I didn’t need to find any place to sleep. It was as if I was going from ghost town to ghost town, idly my existence pushed forward as I surrounded myself with the new experience. I noted hollowly that it was less expensive to ride by proper train for 3 or 4 hours than it had been for the metrorail, on which I’d only spent 30 minutes from end-to-end. I felt a bit sorry for whoever took it for their commutes regularly, I couldn’t imagine getting acclimated to such a thing.

Something about the trains felt a bit too slow, for what it was. The cabins were a bit too cold, it smelled just a bit like food I didn’t quite like on a few occasions— but that was just the way things were. I had my books to accompany me and I needed nothing else. If not that, the sight out the windows was mesmerizing. 

The lights in the cabin might have seemed a bit clinical, if only to keep with the modernist aesthetic, but the contrast it created with the low-light environment outside was breathtaking. I felt like I could take a step out the window if I really wanted to. I could take a step alongside the painted and graffitied walls we passed as we transitioned from urban areas to rural ones— I wondered what that would feel like, if it would liberate me any.

As things stood however, my feet were still asphalt, and my breath still didn’t come out. Everything was silent as I let the world pass by me on the slow moving trains.

I didn’t know where I was going, only that the climate kept getting colder— not that it mattered, at the stations and on the trains it still defaulted to just “slightly chilly”— my sweater barely enough to keep me from shivering. Something about that made my journey something I was always painfully aware of, but something I knew would end at some point. Maybe. 

I barely managed to get something to prepare the noodles in my backpack at one of the stations with the help of an employee I only talked to by accident. They tasted stale, but I ate them anyway, lamenting the fact I felt like I could vomit while doing so. The container went in a metal garbage can and it made an odd noise, as if there was a stone stuck in it when it had been empty. 

It had been hours since I’d left my friend’s house at 9, and despite the fact it was announced regularly when departure time came about, I could not remember what time it was. I just knew that outside the sprawling windows, it was still dark. The lamplight outside made to illuminate abandoned roads mesmerised me, and perhaps they were there for that exact purpose. If not for them, everything would be pitch black, and I’d be unable to see shadows dancing right beyond the glass.

Those shadows— what would they think of me? Perhaps they hadn’t thought anything of me, as most people didn’t think anything of them. I didn’t have time to reflect on it, hearing the chime of the intercom saying that my next train would be off soon, but I just hoped they didn’t think badly of me or my static nature. I hoped they didn’t notice me at all.

I checked my ticket right after settling myself in my seat, there was barely anyone on the train other than myself and a few other stragglers with no faces. It was 4 AM, the sun would rise soon and no trains should be in operation at this time— I hadn’t seen any on the schedule that did. 

I haven’t seen the sun recently. 

Simply speaking, it just didn’t come up. 7 AM passed us and not even the glimmer of the top of the sun so much as grazed us. 8 AM and 9 AM were the same. I wondered rather briefly if I hadn’t just fallen asleep for a short time and dreamt up all of my journey up until that point without realizing it, but sadly my next ticket read 10 AM, and yet the sun had still not come up. For a short time I entertained the idea that that 4 AM train had sent me spiraling into a different reality, but quickly the thought became nonsense. 

The passenger count didn’t go up as you would expect for it to when the morning came. Midnight passengers were all that was still left. I sat down in front of someone rather young for a change, instead of finding an empty pocket where no seats near me were occupied. It was enough distance so they could ignore me if they wanted, or they could engage me if they wanted. I plugged a single headphone in. 

“Miss—”

“Mister.”

“—You aren’t breathing, right?”

I blinked, both at my correction of them and their question. I hadn’t expected them to be able to speak to me, for some reason, and yet they’d been bold enough to ask something like that. I became acutely aware of the weight on my chest again, even though earlier it had almost left my conscience. 

“You noticed?” I asked, hesitant. 

They nodded to me, tilting their head and giving me a look that I couldn’t define with any words I knew— it felt vaguely negative, almost scrutinous, but my mind drew a blank. They must have sensed my nervousness, because they spoke up again. “It’s nothing, I’m just trying to figure out why you think anyone cares.”

I felt bile rise in my throat, and I wanted to hide. I could not look them in the eyes. 

“No one cares if you’re breathing or not, lady.” They said, now much closer to me than I remember them being. I was not looking at them. I was  _ not _ looking at them. 

Their words came in one ear, and shredded out the other. I could not for the life of me remember even the sound of their voice after a minute of feeling their heat near me, they must have been looming over the table that separated our seats, though I couldn’t feel their breath on my face either. They were just like me, not breathing. I would’ve thought they would understand, but I guessed I was proven wrong. Instead, I was left with the vague impression that they thought I had their ears. 

They left at the first stop, and their warmth only lingered briefly afterward, as if the dark outside had eaten it off my body— within an hour they had become a fever dream. No one at all was left on the train. I sat with my head resting on the seat next to me for the next eight hours, listening to the quiet hum of nothing as the chill outside got unbearable and began spiking through me, although my hair pleasantly fanned out and cushioned me slightly. No one forced me off the train, it did not stop at any stations, no one else existed anymore.

I slept as the train went on and on, rumbling against the tracks. I slept for weeks. 

When I woke up, I felt like I would burst. Something in me wanted to gasp, but— no, I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe. There was no way. 

The train had stopped at a station, finally, though I didn’t know since when. It seemed to be stalling, waiting for new passengers to get on. No crew had come to wake me up, to tell me to get off, but I was thankful for that to some extent. Just as that person earlier made me feel so heavy and ready to burst now, I feared I’d transfer the same weight onto whomever I talked to. 

I felt my hair against the back of my neck for the first time the whole trip, I heaved a sigh. I collected myself and my book and I stood up to leave. On the way out, I noted the look of the station I had ended up at. I no longer knew where I was, but the whole thing was dim. A light or two was on, but they flickered. It couldn’t be called dilapidated, but it certainly wasn’t well-kept.

I knew this is where the line ended. I could see the faint glow of the little impersonal screens that let you buy tickets, but even if the line kept going onward, I knew it really didn’t. It struck me as a reality of this world, of this unknown place. There was an unspoken rule that one does not go further than this station— maybe one does not ever come back to it either. This seemed like a final destination. Somewhere you check into, but you don’t check out of. I had heard that line in a song once. 

My footsteps filled the space as I walked out. The station was not deserted, but I seemed to be the only person who made any noise. I recoiled at the thought, and even apologized to a few on the way out. They didn’t acknowledge me. The temperature outside seemed to hug me close. 

I haven’t been feeling much of anything lately. 

The temperature when I stepped out of the station could be described as humid, if I were to break it down to its bare essentials. It wasn’t the slightly chilly of the trains, it wasn’t the odd limbo temperature found in my hometown. It was sort of what you’d expect to feel when you stepped out when you arrived at a beach town in the tropics, though it was devoid of any heat.

It felt inappropriate to simply be there without any proper luggage, though I didn’t have the strength to laugh at the notion. I simply walked forward and tangled through buildings. The lampposts provided enough light, and nothing seemed to lurk around in the dark. I was just accompanied by my own weight and the weight on my chest— though I had grown numb to those things. Funny, how I felt so greatly affected by it minutes before, and yet then it was nothing but a dulled ache.

I didn’t know how long it had been since I left home, but that didn’t matter. The town felt familiar, like a far off childhood memory I couldn’t quite grasp in the present day. It... oddly, it felt safe. There wasn’t a main road to speak of, just simply exiting out into smaller little streets that wound around buildings, wide enough to be comfortable and ample for a pedestrian. It seemed like no one in this town had any cars. 

In this small little town where there were no cars and there were no roads, where the sun had never risen, I found a small opening. Somewhere in a back street it smelled like pleasant salt, and I was led out to a gate where you could see the sea from behind its chain links. It was padlocked, obviously somewhere they didn’t want people being, but something tugged at me and told me I was going to go up and over, that I would sit in the sand and let the water flick at my toes.

The thought terrified me. It terrified me more than anything else— more than the weight and more than my breathing. It was such an utterly selfish thing, to come out here where there was no one and climb the fence just because I could, to do something that without regard for others— it was vile. Utterly vile. 

There was no one to regard, ultimately. My hands gripped the top pole of the fence and I hauled myself over it. Even with my shoes on I could tell the sand was soft and fine under my feet. I could also feel the fence and its locked gate disappear behind me and leave nothing in the way of scenery, but I didn’t look behind myself, instead I trudged forward. 

The waves offered nothing but a gentle push to the shore, a suggestion more than a physical movement. It was as if the waves had given up and simply went along with their tasks as minimally as possible. I crouched, hugging my knees with one hand and putting my hand flat on some of the wet sand with the other. 

I felt the energy drain out of me, as if the little bit of water under my fingers had stolen it. It felt stagnant more than it did physically tiring. I had no desire to fall asleep again just from that, but I simply sank into myself. I wasn’t doing anything but existing for a moment, it pressed my life into such a fine line that a sigh escaped me.

And just like that, my breath tumbled out. 

The pressure in my chest left me through my limbs, just the same as my energy. I felt myself breathe— it felt nice. Relaxing. I had denied myself something so simple— and for what? I couldn’t discern it anymore, I was just glad it was over. Tears of relief came down my face faster than I could ever have processed them myself. I closed my eyes, and as I sat there, I felt the warmth of the sun dance over my skin. Although I didn’t see it, I felt it with all of my being. I was weightless for a short time. 

When I opened my eyes again I was outside my own door. Standing with my keys in my hand. I laughed, thinking it was just the sweetest thing for that town to bring me back home. I hoped I was not the only one who felt the sun. I let myself in and I sunk into my sofa, feeling the euphoria of no longer having a weight on my chest. The atmosphere of my apartment enveloped me in its vice grip, and I laughed at that too. 

I don’t remember whether I fell asleep then, or some other time, but it didn’t really matter much at all. What mattered was the journey, rather than the destination itself. All those trains and the little midnight town were some sort of means to an end in the grand scheme of things. All I had done was end up back in my apartment, strewn out on the couch.

I didn’t think about that at all, I never thought about those sorts of things.

It’s been a week since then. My routine tangled me in it as usual. My limbs that had once freed me were all pulled taut again and I have nothing to say for myself. I stand in my room looking at my calendar with half my clothes on, seeing that only my Saturdays are marked off with dulled red marker. I can’t remember what day it is, really, I just know I’ll be going out. For better or worse. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know that I’ve taken a deep inward breath, and I have not exhaled. I don’t plan on it, not anytime soon.

I haven’t been breathing recently.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I just. Yeah.  
> This was meant to end on a hopeful note, but it ended up being just the opposite. Whoops. I am very happy with it though.  
> I'll be the first to admit I don't actually know what that dialogue with the stranger is all about— particularly that bit with the miss/mister— it felt like a massive freudian slip of sorts, lol. If you can interpret it, go right ahead.


End file.
